Studio Behind EA’s Magical FPS Has Layoffs After Low Sales

On August 22, Immortals of Aveum was released on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC. Three and a half weeks later, around half of the staff who worked on the game have reportedly been laid off after it failed to sell enough copies to satisfy its publisher. It’s yet another round of layoffs to hit the game industry this year.

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Developed by Ascendant Studios and published by EA as an “EA Original,” Immortals of Aveum was billed as an AAA FPS that ditched guns for wild-looking magic attacks. Originally scheduled to launch in July, the game was delayed until late August, putting its release date near the launches of Starfield and Armored Core VI. Some worried that this might lead to Immortals of Aveum getting overlooked as players flocked to the bigger, more hyped releases from Bethesda and FromSoftware. It didn’t help that when Immortals did launch on August 22, the game suffered from performance woes on PC as players with even powerful rigs struggled to play it.

Now it seems the game failed to meet sales expectations, and Ascendant Studios is laying off staff to cut costs.

As first reported by Polygon, on Thursday around 40 people were laid off at Ascendant Studios. The layoffs were announced in a meeting by studio CEO Bret Robbins. Three employees at the studio told Polygon that around 80 to 100 people worked at the company before the layoffs. Another former employee told the outlet that the poor sales of Immortals of Aveum were cited as the reason for the layoffs. Employees at the studio were reportedly told the layoffs were necessary to keep the company running.

Kotaku contacted EA for comment and was pointed toward a statement from Ascendant Studios’ CEO posted on Twitter on September 14, which confirmed that the layoffs affected about 45 percent of the studio’s staff and which called the decision “painfully difficult, but necessary.”

“We are supporting those affected in every way we can,” wrote Robbins in his statement, “including comprehensive severance packages and job placement assistance, as well as support services for those who remain.”

I am so proud of what our independent development team has accomplished with Immortals of Aveum. Together we’ve created a new AAA studio, a new IP, on new technology, during an era of our industry when that is exceedingly rare. We’ve poured our passion into Immortals, while wearing our hearts on our sleeves. The studio will continue to work that way as we support the development of this game and our Immortals IP moving forward with future updates and offers.

According to the report from Polygon, a former employee of the studio explained that Immortals of Aveum is probably one of Electronic Arts’ worst-selling Originals and it was claimed that, before this larger round of departures, several other people were laid off shortly after the game’s launch.

This latest round of layoffs is sadly not the first of 2023. Since the beginning of this year, Firaxis, CD Projekt Red, Unity, Kabam Games, Ubisoft, Take-Two, Riot Games, Meta, and other companies have announced rounds of layoffs. Back in March, EA itself announced that 800 people had lost their jobs. We also saw the recent closure of Volition, the studio behind Saints Row, after 30 years of developing games. It’s a tough time to be a game developer, and it doesn’t seem to be getting any easier.

Correction 09/14/2023 16:35 p.m. ET: This story’s original headline suggested that EA made the layoff decision. It’s been reworded to make clear that Ascendant studio management made that choice.

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Sega Cancels Hyenas Before Launch, Studio Faces Layoffs

Sega has canceled the yet-to-be-released Hyenas, an extraction shooter set in space that was in development at Total War and Alien Isolation studio Creative Assembly. The publisher also canceled several other, unannounced games as part of “structural reforms” across its European operations.

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Announced in June 2022, Hyenas was described as a “sci-fi space piracy multiplayer FPS” pitting teams of players against each other and NPCs as they fought to steal valuable items and pieces of pop culture, like Sonic statues and Rubik’s cubes. On September 11, the game wrapped up its most recent beta. 17 days later, Sega and the developers behind Hyenas confirmed it was canceled.

The news broke Thursday via a post on Twitter from the official Hyena’s account confirming that it had ended development on the shooter, and saying that the decision to cancel the game wasn’t “made lightly.”

“We knew our plans were ambitious,” said Creative Assembly, “And we knew we were diving headfirst into competition with some of the greats. But we believed in the journey and we’re proud to have taken every step along the way. We hope you’ll join us in remembering the action-packed, zero-G chaos and the diehard community of players who helped us make it special.”

Following reports from IGN that Creative Assembly may face layoffs, the studio tweeted its own separate statement after confirming the cancellation of Hyenas. In it, the dev team explained that it had begun the “difficult” process of “redundancy consultation.”

“This may, unfortunately, result in job losses,” said Creative Assembly. “While we must go through this incredibly difficult process, we will prioritize supporting our people at every step. For those whose jobs are at risk, we will work to re-allocate them into other available roles within [Creative Assembly] wherever possible, and ultimately minimize any job losses.”

Creative Assembly sent over this statement to Kotaku:

Creative Assembly, part of SEGA Europe, has announced the beginning of a redundancy consultation process, alongside ending development of HYENAS. This decision affects areas of its UK operations, which may result in job losses.

We understand that this has a significant impact on our people, whether they are directly at-risk of redundancy or not. Our people-first approach remains foundational to how we operate; the priority is to work with those whose jobs are at-risk and re-allocate them to other available opportunities at CA wherever possible.

We are absolutely committed to delivering more exciting game experiences long into the future, which will delight both current and potential players all over the world.

Why Hyenas was canceled

These possible layoffs and the canceled game are part of a larger situation at Sega, which owns Creative Assembly.

In a press release posted Thursday on SegaSammy’s official website, the company blamed its lower profits in the UK on less demand for games due to fewer people being stuck at home after the lifting of covid-19 lockdowns and an “economic downturn due to inflation” in Europe. To “adapt to these changes” and “improve” profits in the region, Sega is implementing “structural reforms” after reviewing in-development games.

“In response to the lower profitability of the European region,” said Sega, “We have reviewed the title portfolio of each development base in Europe and the resulting action will be to cancel ‘HYENAS’ and some unannounced titles under development. Accordingly, we will implement a write-down of work-in-progress for titles under development.”

For those worried, Sega confirmed its “Pachinko Machines Business” continues to “perform well.”

Layoffs and cancellations have been an unfortunate industry trend in 2023, as every week seems to bring another wave of firings across countless video game studios and publishers like EA, Unity, and Riot.

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Popular Battle Royale Fall Guys Hit By Epic Games Layoffs

Epic Games acquired Mediatonic in 2021 after its colorful battle royale, Fall Guys, became a multiplayer sensation early in the covid-19 pandemic. Now, it’s laying off tons of developers at the UK-based studio as part massive cost cutting at the Fortnite maker.

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In Epic CEO Tim Sweeney’s email to staff today about the more than 800 layoffs, which was subsquently shared on the company’s website, he said the company would continue to invest in its games. “We aren’t cutting any core businesses, and are continuing to invest in games with Fortnite first-party development, the Fortnite creator ecosystem and economy, Rocket League and Fall Guys,” he wrote.

But some developers impacted by the decision immediately started sharing the news they had been cut from the studio on social media. Staff in the office even apparently took the letters normally used to display the company’s name and rearranged them to spell “Decimation.” The image was tweeted out by Ed Fear, designer and writer on Mediatonic’s 2020 Ace Attorney-style visual novel, Murder By Numbers.

“Unfortunately, I am one of the people affected by the layoffs today at Epic,” he wrote. “I’m absolutely devastated to leave behind so many amazing Mediatonic colleagues who I loved.” Others impacted include game designers, level designers, and artists. It’s not clear how many people in total were laid off from Mediatonic, or how many developers are still working on Fall Guys. A spokesperson for Epic Games declined to share specifics, but called reports that the entire team had been let go “false.”

Mediatonic was cofounded in 2005 in Uxbridge, England by Dave Bailey and Paul Croft. The small indie startup was widely known for making flash games until it released the shooter Who’s That Flying?! for the PlayStation Portable in 2010. It then made a remake of the cult-hit Hatoful Boyfriend and worked on various mobile releases including Gear Pop! and Fable Fortunate. But it wasn’t until Fall Guys became a break-away hit in 2020 that Mediatonic’s profile blew up and it was subsequently bought by Epic.

The parent company transitioned the online multiplayer platformer where players maneuver clumsy beans through surreal obstacle courses from a paid model to a free-to-play one more in-line with Fortnite. This came with season passes and the expectations of constant updates and new costumes for fans to be able to purchase. Epic also pulled the game from Steam. Amid fears it’s been stagnating, some of the game’s hardcore fans routinely pine for a major overhaul and revival.

“Very hardworking, super-talented and genuinely nice colleagues got laid off at Epic/Mediatonic today,” tweeted Fall Guys game designer Beatriz Díaz Martín. “Many of them friends I have worked with for years.”

When big tech comapanies announced mass layoffs earlier this year, Sweeney responded with a meme about how Epic Games banded together when things got tough unlike Google, Meta, and other Sillicon Valley giants. It’s not clear yet whether Sweeney is taking any pay cuts as part of the latest cost-saving measures.

      

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Fortnite Sells ‘Share The Wealth’ Emote After Mass Layoffs

The video game industry is still reeling from Epic Games’ September 28 announcement that it will lay off nearly 900 employees. If developers at the Fortnite money-printing factory aren’t safe, nobody is. In perhaps the worst-timed microtransaction ever, Fortnite’s “Share The Wealth” emote went back up for sale on the battle royale’s in-game shop later that day.

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It didn’t take Fortnite news accounts like Guille_GAG long to discover the emote had returned to cap off the a day full of grim news. “Epic has brought back the Share the Wealth Emote just after firing 900 of their employees…,” they tweeted. “Epic Games is under fire for selling the ‘Share the Wealth’ Emote in today’s Item Shop rotation – just hours after 830 employees were laid off,” the FortniteBR Instagram account posted.

It appears the emote, which was added to the game earlier this year in Chapter 4: Season 3, was only on sale for a brief period before being removed. According to FortniteBR and others, the emote was removed when Epic took down the entire Daily Rotation tab from the store shortly after the emote went live.

A company spokesperson told Kotaku in an email that the “Share The Wealth” emote was pre-scheduled. “The emote was taken down when we realized the mistake roughly one hour after going live,” they wrote. Epic Games acknowledged the missing feature on Twitter and said it would return during the next item shop refresh.

“We’ve been spending way more money than we earn,” Epic CEO Tim Sweeney wrote in an email to staff announcing the layoffs. It was a peculiar invocation of of the royal “we,” considering the executive then proceeded to list acquisitions, expansions, and other business initiatives, like growing Fortnite as a metaverse-inspired ecosystem for creators, that most of the people laid off probably had no say in.

It’s unclear what sort of salary Sweeney and other executives at the company draw. Epic remains a privately owned company, so it doesn’t have to disclose any of that information. Sweeney has pushed back again the concept of a wealth tax in the past, claiming that it would penalize people like him by forcing them to sell equity in their companies anytime they become more valuable. While the larger company remains a black box, we do know that Fortnite made $9 billion in its first two years, and Epic continues to rake in “billions of dollars a year in revenue from player purchases.”

The news around Epic’s layoffs renewed questions about how companies handle cost-cutting, and who feels the pain first when economic gambles don’t pay off. People often recall the late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata’s symbolic pay cuts when his companies’ products would underperform, like the 3DS and Wii U. Some other gaming CEOs have undergone similar compensation cuts in recent years, including Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, and Activision. Relative to the millions earned in company stock, however, the salary haircuts often seem like a pittance in comparison.

“The reality of being laid off by Epic while being treated for skin cancer has hit me and woken me from a not sound sleep and I don’t think there are words for how furious I am at the company, the leadership, their greed…all of it.” one former Epic employee tweeted overnight. In the meantime, Epic is still burning money on things like Epic Games Store, its Steam competitor, showering players with free games. The latest freebie is the action RPG Soulstice, which is normally listed at $40.

“Saying goodbye to people who have helped build Epic is a terrible experience for all,” Sweeney wrote in his email to staff. “The consolation is that we’re adequately funded to support laid off employees: we’re offering a severance package that includes six months base pay and in the US/Canada/Brazil six months of Epic-paid healthcare.”

           

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Cyberpunk 2077 Developers Form New Union In Face Of Layoffs

As the international gaming industry faces wave after wave of layoffs, workers at Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher developer, CD Projekt Red, have created a new Poland-wide union aimed at protecting their rights. This arrives in the face of the massive studio announcing it would be firing nine percent of its staff by March 2024.

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Związek Pracowników Branży Gier (Polish Gamedev Workers Union) has been created by CDPR employees Lev Ki and Paweł Myszka, reports Eurogamer, following a third round of job losses in three months at the studio.

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The new union’s site explains that it’s not specific to CDPR, but rather aims to represent “all professions and people working in the game development sector in Poland.”

CD Projekt Red has obviously been through a tumultuous few years, with the protracted development and disastrous launch of Cyberpunk 2077 upending its schedules, pulling hundreds of developers off potentially The Witcher 4 and any other projects they may have been working on, and then only made worse by a further year of all-hands-on-deck trying to get CP77 into a functioning state and its DLC out of the door.

That done, the studio will be entering relatively quieter times, and as is the grim state of the games development industry, mean it does not need to employ as many staff until it gets closer to launching whatever might come next. Announcing it would be letting go nine percent of its workforce, some 100 people, was enough to push those remaining into organizing.

“This event created a tremendous amount of stress and insecurity, affecting our mental health and leading to the creation of this union in response,” explains the site. It continues, “Having a union means having more security, transparency, better protection, and a stronger voice in times of crisis.”

This union can only represent workers in Poland, with Polish contracts, and as such doesn’t cover those in CDPR’s Vancouver studio. However, they can of course begin their own efforts to unionize. As the union site explains,

The above shows how employers tend to view their interests to be in conflict with those of their employees. While employees are the ones creating value in this arrangement, they lack any decision power in company-structure-related matters. That is why we need to organize to enter those situations on equal footing.

Update: CDPR gave us this statement in response to the formation of the union:

We have been informed about the intention to form a trade union covering gamedev companies, including our company. We will act in accordance with law and comply with legal obligations that might arise from that situation.

At the same it’s worth mentioning that the voice of RED’s team is already represented by the RED Team Representatives (RTR), which is a democratically elected body representing all employees and independent of the management board. We have been working with them for over 2 years now and we will continue to do so to keep our work environment transparent, safe and healthy.

Updated: 10/10/23, 03.51 a.m. ET: This post was updated to include CDPR’s statement in response to the story.

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